


Ode - by 00Q

by ElizabethDurham



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Don't worry, Explosions, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gadgets, Humor, I promise, Inspired by Poetry, Kidnapping, M/M, Mild Gore, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Slow Build, it has a happy ending, poem fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-05
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-25 18:19:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/956228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElizabethDurham/pseuds/ElizabethDurham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bond and Q are like puzzle pieces, interlocking and complimenting. Bond pulls the triggers, Q tells him where to aim. It's the perfect partnership of a broken, beautiful man and a brilliant one. This is a story of an agent and his quartermaster, perhaps an over-told one, but there's a beauty in the predictable unpredictability of it all, isn't there?</p>
<p>Based on Arthur O'Shaughnessy's 'Ode.' Because there is a lyrical quality of two people learning and accepting each other as a part of themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_We are the music-makers_

The clacking of computer keys was annoying at first, like the whirring fans that constantly buzzed around Q-branch.

“Come now, Bond. I put up with the gunshots and the fucking in my earpiece. Surely you can condition yourself to a few clacking keys.”

“You listen to me fucking?” Bond smirked jokingly, leaning down so his breath ghosted over the quartermaster’s hopeless mop of hair. Q blushed and returned to his clapping keys.

Bond raised an eyebrow.

The sound of keystrokes at an impossible speed flying through a mind that moved even faster became a symbol of Q. A constant hum in his hear during missions that meant someone cared. Like music.


	2. And we are the dreamers of dreams

And we are the dreamers of dreams

“Bond! 007! James fucking Bloody Bond, come in!”

“Q, I didn’t…” harsh breathing. Not good. Punctured lung, possibly. Not a chest shot, surely? Q watched on screen as Bond analyzed angles, trajectories, locating each of the dozen snipers above him before drifting across the fifty or so booted feet wallowing in his blood. Brilliant, scarlet blood. Blood of England. And wasn’t that just fucking poetic?

“…..didn’t know you cared.”

Of course I do, you bloody bastard. 

“I’m your quartermaster, Bond,” was all he said aloud.

“James.”

The men around Bond – James – raised their guns again, taking aim.

“James….” Q whispered.

“Quillian.”

The image on one of Q’s monitors, his clean, impersonal monitors now splashed with projections of another man’s blood, flickered. 

“James!” Q’s fingers danced across the keyboard, the only music Bond cared to listen to. 

There was only so much that could be done from a distance, though. Only so many problems that could be fixed without someone like Bond to pull the trigger. Only so long an anomaly such as Bond was meant to survive. 

The camera went dark, and Q heard a bang in his ear, unnaturally loud. 

He didn’t sleep for three days, all the while damning Bond – James – for cutting that camera. For taking away Q’s choice, whether to watch, or not. For forcing him to stand by and effectively kill James Bond. James. 

“Q”

Q didn’t turn around. He’d heart the high heels coming. 

“Q, I’m taking you home.”

“Eve, with all due respect, I’d like to see you try.”

She left in a click of high heels that drowned out the clack of keys.

It wasn’t until Q literally felt his arms give out, mid key-stroke, that he realized Eve might have had a point. 

Luckily, Eve wasn’t far away. 

“Don’t….don’t want,” he whined, aware he sounded like a petulant child and finding it very hard to care. His legs gave out a moment later, and no, he was most definitely not leaning against Eve’s arms around him, “Don’t want….want to go home.”

“Darling,” Eve soothed, “Darling, I know. You did your best. No one will blame you for that. Least of all him.”

Q let his eyes close, not even registering the indignity as he fainted away in Eve’s arms. 

He dreampt of blue eyes he’d never thought he’d miss and woke wanting to punch his brains out for mooning and, later, for the all-encompassing guilt. 

“Caring will get you killed.”

Well. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.


	3. Wandering by lone sea-breakers

Wandering by lone sea-breakers

“007. There’s a trip wire approximately 7 meters ahead of you.”

“Just approximately? Surely you can do better than that, quartermaster.”

Q sighed.

“7 meters, 007.”

“…yes, Q.”

The new 007 was a long-limbed blond woman with a leopard’s smile and the patented 00 charm in abundance. 

No one had told her why Q refused to indulge her in the playful banter and shiny gadgets he gave most of the other 00’s.

Perhaps because no one really knew. 

“There’s a boat down by the wharf. It’ll take you back to England.”

“What? No pat on the back for my ego?” the new 007 joked. Q sipped his tea.

“Come home, 007.”

The waves broke in 007’s vision, and in Q’s. 

He turned the COM system off so 007 wouldn’t have to deal with the sound of keystrokes in her ear.


	4. And sitting by desolate streams

And sitting by desolate steams.

“Come home with me.”

“And why would I do that?”

The blue-eyed man smiled across the table, and she couldn’t deny it was an enchanting prospect.

“Because I have absolutely nothing left to loose,” he whispered above the gurgling of the American river rushing along beside them, “and just think of a night with a man like that.”


	5. World-loosers and world-forsakers

World-Losers and word forsakers

“R.”

Q’s whispered voice was magnified through Q-branch like the voice of God. R, a startled, red-haired woman, glanced around, wondering if she should answer. 

“R. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to take over branch operations. I’m being kidnaped. By five men wearing American-made balaclavas. New York accents. Black Landover. Couldn’t see the license plate. We’re heading….east, I think. Sorry I can’t….” the signal stuttered half-heartedly, “….more.”

R looked like she was about to cry. Half the minions started screaming, the other half (the ones who’d been there a while_ began furiously searching vehicle registrations and NY felons reports. 

“I’m afraid….” Another crackle of static, “…won’t last long. Tell M…..”

“….that I don’t…..” 

“…it’s something I wan…..”

“….and then….”

“----------------------------------“


	6. On whom the pale moon gleams

On whom the pale moon gleams

They had him for five days.

002 was sent out first, with an entourage of junior agents. 

006, the second (first, now. What with 007 out of the picture) most destructive agent, and therefore Q’s second favorite, no matter how he whinged, had marched into M’s office the first day and demanded he be sent out as well. M had refused. 

006 and R had formed a pact; he would risk M’s wrath if R and the minions would give him the best information avalible. 002 were a good agent, but new to the game. Without emotional attachment. Not to mention bogged down by a veritable flock of his own minions. 

Q-branch itself was working around the clock, setting up cots in the break room for the weaker underlings to crash every two days or so for an hour of sleep. R, after the initial breakdown (lasting all of 10 hours and 12 cups of chamomile), had taken up Q’s place as general slave driver, though she left Q’s workstation, on a plinth in the center of the room, well alone. After a particular difficult bit of hacking, the minions had taken up the habit of glancing over to Q’s scrabble mug where it sat by his abandoned laptop, as though it were Q himself. 

“Where is he?” M barked down his line to 002, making it crackle with static. 

“No fucking idea,” she griped, whacking one of her underlings around the head, “and this lot isn’t helping.”

“Well, send them out to search like you were supposed to.”

002 grumbled something unintelligible about incompetent bastards, which M ignored. He turned to R instead, holding out a hand expectantly, which she stared at in confusion. He almost rolled his eyes.

“Your COM line to 006? Come now, I won’t punish you. Save that for after we have our quartermaster back, hm?”

R reluctantly handed it over.

“006?”

The sound of gunshots and then, predictably, an explosion of some sort. M hoped it wasn’t an embassy building. 

“006?”

Breathless silence. Then:

“Where the hell is Bond when I need him?”

M sighed. 

He didn’t hear from Alec again until the fourth day, when his personal phone rang. 

“M?” 

“006,” M muttered, “please tell me you’ve got something.”

006 laughed. Laughed. M had a sudden urge to put England on red-alert. 

“006 going off-grid, HQ. Thought I’d warn you. Tell Q-branch we’ll have their precious quartermaster back soon enough.”

“We?”

The line went dead. 

 

“I should shoot you in the chest myself, you know,” Alec said lazily, the smile he’d had on his face for the past hour still firmly in place. 

“And waste my efforts in resurrection? I think not.”

006 reached out, punching the blond-haired, blue-eyed agent on the shoulder.

“James Bloody Bond. Are you never going to die?”

The two laughed, pulling out their guns in tandem. Each was painfully aware that their precious weapons had been designed and built by a man they had thus far failed to rescue. 

“So,” Alec asked conversationally, “do you know where he is?”

Bond grinned – a shark’s grin with blood in its nostrils – 

“I’m hurt you think so little of me.”

 

Q had stopped trying to keep in the little whimpers, let alone the screams. Pride only takes one so far, and after what he estimated was a day, the pain overrode the dignity. 

After about three days, he stopped counting.

“Pretty little thing,” his captor, or, at least, the lead thug, whispered menacingly through his bars, as he was in a habit of doing whenever it seems he got bored of just punching Q bloody, “pretty thing, come now. Much longer and we’ll have to start on that pretty face.”

Q moaned, curling in on himself, on the broken arm, the scratches and cuts, the shattered ankle, and the rainbow of bruises. Thankfully, they’d left his fingers alone; they wanted him to type, to hack. He hadn’t bothered to listen to what. Probably another weakling government, judging by the intelligence level of his captors. 

“Come now, pretty hacker. This pain is your own doing, your own fault, you know. You can make it stop as easily as it began. Just say the word.”

“Go to hell,” he managed to mutter through the dry, cracked lips. The man laughed. The cringe-worthy clang of the metal shutter slamming shut echoed about the room, before vanishing. Q tensed, waiting for their inevitable return, the fists and steel-toed boots and knives. He wondered how much longer he had before his body eventually took control of his mind. 

Not long enough.

A shout, followed by gunshots. The sound of something sickly heavy hitting the door. Q didn’t uncurl himself from his little corner.

There was a pounding on the door, followed by a grunt, another gunshot, then the bang of the door being kicked in. 

“Q!”

Oh, fuck. No.

“Q? Are you in here?”

Q whimpered. He knew that voice. Had they drugged him? He hadn’t eaten anything. 

“Go away,” he muttered. Bond laughed gently.

“Q, it’s me.”

“No it’s not. You’re dead. I…just go. Please.”

“Q, please. It’s Bond. The bloody bastard,” Alec’s voice joined the nightmare-dream that, with every passing second, he grew more and more convinced was some sort of drug-induced haze.

“Don’t…please…” he whispered, “we fucking killed him…fucking….fucking James Bond…fucking killed him.”

Silence.

“You bloody idiot,” Bond said bluntly.

Q closed his eyes, wondering when the drug would wear off, and indeed the shapes had fallen silent, but this was soon followed by worryingly warm hands scooping his shivering body up. Fingers pressed into cuts and bruises and, as he was carried into the hallway, jostling his broken arm, he screamed. He screamed and screamed until his parched throat gave out and he was back on the ground, Bond and Alec hovering over him. 

“Please tell me one of those fucking bastards is still alive,” Bond’s voice hissed, murderous.

“James, we don’t have time for one of your vendettas.”

“Like hell we don’t. Did you hear him? He thinks it was his fucking fault. The idiot. And then…this! If I had been there……I told him not to care.”

Alec laughed,

“The thing about giving advice, James, is that kind of have to follow it yourself.”

“Shut up. 

“Yeah, as if. Weren’t’ we in a hurry to get out of here?”

They both looked towards Q, who was resolutely refusing to open his eyes. Whispered words flickered in and out of his consciousness as the two agents discussed different possibilities for moving their delicate quartermaster, but Q shut them out. 

He flinched when footsteps approached. 

“I’m sorry, Q,” Bond’s voice whispered, and Q tried to say it was all right, he didn’t blame him. Why didn’t he blame Q?

But then Bond’s – James’s – arms were around him again, and the pain grinned and roared. Bond was whispering a quiet litany of “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” before shouting to Alec over his shoulder,

“Please tell me we’ve got something to sedate him with.”

Q saw the moonlight between the edges of Bond’s biceps, then a prick in his arm – and how could he feel that amid everything else? – And then darkness.

“I’m sorry.”

So am I.


	7. Yet we are the movers and shakers

Yet we are the movers and shakers

Q was released from 24-7 medical surveillance ten days later. He was given an electric wheelchair and strict instructions not to leave the medical wing. Q had nodded politely as the stern-looking nurse programmed the chair to freeze when it sensed Q had passed his boundaries. After she was gone, Q set about programming it to ignore all previous safeguards and simply listen to his voice-activated directions. That done, he gave it directions to Q-branch and slid through the star-trek-esque doors for the first time in fifteen days. 

The minions hushed as they saw him, the keystrokes of two dozen computers falling silent, except for one. 

R was directing Bond through a mission, furiously attempting to give the notoriously demanding – and notoriously effective – agent what he needed from her cluttered workstation. 

“Take a left down the next corner, 007,” she barked, clearly frazzled. 

“Left?” Bond’s voice echoed around Q-branch. 

“Yes, Bond. I know what I’m doing.”

“Are you sure, this time?” Bond’s voice huffed, “Not another flame-throwing monkey hybrid to my left, is there?”

R accepted a mug of coffee from a minion, rubbing the bridge of her nose in a way that heralded one of her mini-breakdowns. 

Q took pity, and pressed a few buttons on his wheelchair, whirring into the center of the room, up onto his abandoned platform via an extendable ramp he’d built into the chair for just such a purpose. He’d meant to give it some sort of levitating ability, but there hadn’t been time. 

R opened her mouth to say something to Bond, saw Q, and left it open. She passed the Com set to a minion, who handed it with reverent care to Q, who in turn settled it over his head, feeling like he was coming home. 

“Bond?” Q screwed in the earpiece that say by his laptop, flipping up the lid and firing it up. He held out his scrabble mug, where it was immediately snatched by a minion to be filled with the customary earl grey. 

It felt good, coming back. Normal. This was what he was good at. From here, he could shake the world. 

“Bond?”

an intake of breath on the other end of the line.

“Welcome back, Q,” Bond said warmly, “save the tearful reunions for another time though, hm?”

“Quite right,” Q smirked sideways, growing in confidence as his fingers flew, bringing up the myriad of different floor plans, each slightly different than the others, trying to decide which was the most accurate by the feed from Bond’s camera. 

“Tell me, Bond,” he asked, too absorbed to even notice the twinge of pain as he moved his broken arm, “to your left. Is there a hallway or just a closet?”

Bond turned,

“Hallway.”

Q nodded,

“Turn right.”

Bond did, without hesitation.

In another window, Q activated the infrared scanner in Bond’s watch.

“Hold your wrist up and spin in a circle for me,” Q commanded, “I’m taking a scan for anyone you might want to deal with before they come to deal with you.”

Nothing. Q sent Bond onwards.

“What was that about gadgets, Q?” Bond couldn’t’ help but ask as he jogged steadily towards the exit to the complex, “’we don’t really go in for that anymore?’ tell me, then, what do you qualify a heat-sensing watch as?”

“Quiet, Bond,” Q chastised, dangerously close to fond, “you’d do well to remember I withhold the right to revoke your gadget privileges as easily as I gave them.”

“Easily?”

Q felt a warm mug in his hand, smelling of heaven. He let out an indecent moan as the liquid passed his lips. God, he’d missed tea. 

“Dare I ask what that noise was?” Bond asked lightly, and Q could almost feel his smirk, “am I really that nice to look at?”

“Don’t think the goodwill of my rescue makes you special, Bond,” Q said, busy hacking into the building’s mainframe to disable the alarms Bond would never know about.

Bond grinned onscreen. A great whump of sound deafened Q-branch as the building 007 had just left behind exploded magnificently.

“The name’s James. And I’ve always been special.”


	8. Of the world forever it seems

Of the world forever, it seems.

A trigger and melted forward-half of a gun barrel fell onto Q’s desk, still, impossibly, steaming slightly. 

“Hello, Bond,” Q greeted without looking up, “and day you really must tell me just how you manage things like,” he gestured hopelessly at the mangled bit of higher tech, “…this.”

“What else?” Bond purred, leaning into Q’s space as though he entirely belonged, “undeniable skill.” 

And Q…Q didn’t do a thing to stop him. 

“I’m glad you’re back, Bond,” he said quietly. 

Bond flicked blue, blue eyes to his quartermaster, still wheelchair-bound despite his protestations and a truly epic war of attricion with medical, and smiled.

“England would fall without me,” he grinned.

Q rolled his eyes.

“Well,” Bond amended, “you and I both.”


End file.
